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purchases during the school dinner hour, and the number of adult and child
customers in the evenings. In the evenings, too, the busiest shops in the main
thoroughfares are those where cooked foods are retailed over the counter.
Legislation, which did not foresee these changes, contains no provision for
dealing properly with the premises, and the Legislature has made no attempt to obtain
control over them. Such places as the law, as it now stands, requires to be registered
or licensed are mainly those in which uncooked food is dealt with, e.g., slaughterhouses,
cow sheds, milk shops, &c.
Having regard to the changes, the law should be extended in order to provide
for registration of the cooked-food premises also. Before establishing a restaurant
or eating rooms of any description, a cook-shop or a cooked-food shop, it should be
necessary for application for registration to be made to the local authority., and
registration should not be granted until the premises had been inspected and passed
as suitable.
For departmental and inspection purposes at present a register is kept at the
Public Health Office, and particulars with regard to new premises are added as they
are found.
As a matter of routine, a number of restaurants, &c., are visited each week by
the Food Inspector, and any matters discovered at these inspections are dealt with
at once. In 1919 the total number of inspections was 1,060, the number of notices
served being 11. Proceedings were necessary in only one case. If and when
registration is made compulsory, the work of supervision and control will be greatly
simplified, though it is just possible that at first, at least, it might entail an increase in
work. The matter is, however, of sufficient importance from the public health point
of view to warrant it. Just as from this point of view also, the suggestion that there
should be registration of restaurants and cooked-food shops, even of all food shops, is
warranted.
Food Stalls.—Another class of food premises to which reference may conveniently
be made at this point are the food stalls. Of these there are considerable
numbers in the market streets, particularly Great Titchfield Street, Bell Street,
Church Street, Blandford Street, &c.
The whole question of street stalls is a thorny one, and awaits solution. In the
meantime the situation must be accepted, and definite arrangements are made for
the keeping of such as are used for the sale of food under close observation.
Throughout 1919 visits were paid to all the market streets every day, a special
feature being made of Saturday night and Sunday morning inspections.
SCHOOLS.
The Medical Officer of Health of a Borough in the Metropolis is not school
medical officer. The work in connection with both schools and school children is
entirely in the hands of the London County Council and their officers, the local
medical officer of health having little or nothing to do with it. In no part of the
kingdom, indeed, is the divorce between the general public health work and school
medical work so complete as in the Metropolis, and since it is impossible to see any
justification for it on public health grounds, certainly, and probably also on economic
grounds, it is difficult to see why either the central government authorities or the
local authorities have for so long acquiesced in the arrangement.
For the reason that this question of re-organization of public health in London
is under consideration and this as well as other anomalies are or will soon be under